Slate has an article from Ken Jennings talking about his match this week against IBM’s Watson Supercomputer. This was my favorite quote.
So my defeat at the hands of a machine has a happy ending, after all. At least until the whole system becomes sentient and figures out the nuclear launch codes. But I figure that’s years away.
Pretty soon we’ll all need some Old Glory Insurance.
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery.
Charles Dickens, David Copperfield
Posted in Quotes
Written 2 millennia ago; relevant today. Human nature does not change.
Now there is great gain in godliness with contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.
But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.
1 Timothy 6:6-12 ESV
Update 11/24/10:
One more quote on money that informs how I view possessions and their role in my life.
Two things I ask of you;
deny them not to me before I die:
Remove far from me falsehood and lying;
give me neither poverty nor riches;
feed me with the food that is needful for me,
lest I be full and deny you
and say, “Who is the LORD?”
or lest I be poor and steal
and profane the name of my God.Proverbs 30:7-9 ESV
Posted in Quotes
But corporations can go bust as often as they like, thus subsidizing us consumers by transferring their wealth into our pockets – the more bankruptcies, the better it is for us. Government is a more serious business and we need to make sure we do not pay the price for its folly. As individuals we should love free markets because operators in them can be as incompetent as they wish.
-Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan
Posted in Quotes
It is tough to make predictions, especially about the future.
-Yogi Berra
Posted in Quotes
This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games.
-William S. Burroughs, Grand Street, No. 37 (1991)
Posted in Quotes
